The present invention relates to parameter control methods and programs therefor and parameter setting apparatus which are suited for use in digital mixers.
Recent mixing systems are provided with a function of storing, in memory, parameter values set via faders, volume control operator members, etc., ON/OFF states of various buttons and other settings or setting states (scene data) of the mixing system and then reproducing the thus-stored settings through one-touch operation by the user; one example of such recent mixing systems is known from “DM2000 Instruction Manual”, published by Yamaha Corporation in February, 2002, Pages 160-163. For example, parameters in the scene data may include, in addition to the operating states of the operator members, outputs of MIDI events, outputs of GPI (General-Purpose Interface) events, etc.
When scene recall instructing operation has been performed, parameter values of the individual operator members have to be displayed on an operation panel in automatically-reproducible form. Specific display form of the parameter value differs among the types of the operator members. For each of the faders, the parameter value is displayed by an operating position of the fader itself, thus, for automatic reproduction of the parameter values on the operation panel, it is necessary to provide a drive mechanism, such as a motor mechanism, to physically drive the faders.
Further, in the mixing systems, predetermined switches each have an LED built therein to display an operating state of the switch by an ON/OFF state of the LED. The operating state of the switch can be reproduced by automatically turning on/off the LED in accordance with a memory-stored setting. Generally, for each of the volume control members, a plurality of LEDs are disposed circularly around the volume control member, so as to indicate the parameter value of the volume control member by respective illuminating states of these circularly-disposed LEDs. According to the disclosure of the above-mentioned “DM2000 Instruction Manual”, a time length necessary for an operator member, such as a fader, to reach an operating position corresponding to a target value after a user's scene data recall instruction is referred to as “fade time”, and a human operator or user is allowed to set a desired fade time for each of the operator members.
With the above-discussed technique, however, driving etc. of all the operator members are started at once in response to a scene recall instruction, and it is impossible to instruct, by single scene data, a particular process, e.g. where a plurality of faders are caused to fade in sequentially at predetermined time intervals. Therefore, when such a particular process is required, it is necessary to create a plurality of scene data for causing the plurality of faders to fade in individually and then sequentially recall these scene data as necessary. However, if such a recall process is expressed by a plurality of scene data as noted above, the number of scenes would increase greatly, so that management of the scene data would be unavoidably complicated and a scene memory of a great capacity would be required.